The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection

Chapter 26.

The little brown box

BEING DROPPED BY SPECTRUM was humiliating but Ruby wasn’t taking it lying down. If she could only get some proof – get her hands on that piece of paper.

By the time Hitch dropped her back home it was already early evening. Her parents were out and she wasn’t in the mood to sit eating her supper alone so she headed off in the direction of the Double Donut. When she arrived she settled on one of the high stools at the counter and was about to order when a thought occurred to her. She slipped off the stool and went straight to the phone booth next to the restroom.

‘Hey Clance, meet me at the Double, as soon as.’

‘I’m not really hungry Rube,’ replied Clancy.

‘Good, ’cause I wasn’t planning on eating.’ She put the phone down.

Fifteen minutes later a very out of breath Clancy stumbled through the door.

‘What took you?’ said Ruby.

‘Give me a break! I ran the whole way – so what am I doing here exactly?’

‘I’ll tell you in the cab,’ said Ruby.

‘Oh brother, not again!’

Soon enough they were in a car heading east.

‘So,’ said Clancy, ‘what’s going on?’

‘So LB wouldn’t listen – I told her my hunch. I told her that Lopez was most probably bumped off by the Fool’s Gold Gang. It makes sense – she wasn’t trained as a spy and as a consequence she got spotted.’

‘Do you think the Fool’s Gold Gang know who she was working for?’

‘Nah, I figure they don’t – I think they think she’s just some nosey parker who happened to be looking in their direction and they don’t like people looking in their direction.’

‘They sure don’t,’ said Clancy with a shiver.

‘My guess is they tailed her to see what she was up to and when she landed up mountain climbing, they came to the conclusion that she was just some woman who had accidentally seen something suspicious but to be on the safe side they decided to rub her out. Only they’re clever – they make it look like an accident by starting an avalanche.’

‘Do you think they mighta spotted you? This Fool’s Gold Gang?’ Clancy was beginning to feel queasy again. Danger did that to him – he had a weak stomach when it came to life and death situations.

‘I certainly hope not, not now I have seen some of the likely suspects – one of them looked like Dracula.’

‘What, you saw the actual gang?’

‘No, not the gang, just some possible suspects – just in a slide show.’ Ruby hadn’t meant to tell him about that. She was telling him far too much – knowing too much about a bunch of ruthless killers wasn’t going to do his health any favours at all.

‘So who were they?’

‘Look, we’re here now Clance – I’ll tell you some other time, OK? It was no big deal – just a few faces.’

‘Tomorrow?’ said Clancy.

Minutes later the cab pulled up on Maverick Street. The two of them stepped out on to the sidewalk. There was no one around, it wasn’t a residential neighbourhood and being Friday evening the shops and offices were deserted.

‘This place gives me the creeps,’ said Clancy.

‘Well, I’m not planning on staying the night – we’ll take a look in the box and then go home.’

‘Box? What box?’

‘Just a box of Lopez’s stuff.’

‘What stuff?’ said Clancy

‘The stuff she had on her when she died.’

Clancy shivered – he wasn’t feeling so good. ‘I’m not sure about this Rube – can’t you just ask LB about it again tomorrow?’

‘Look you don’t get it Clancy – there is no tomorrow. LB fired me, OK?’ She hadn’t wanted to tell him that.

He was suitably stunned.

‘So do you see why I have to do this?’

Clancy nodded; he knew she had no choice.

‘Look Clance, we’ll just break in to the office, take a look around and then I promise I’ll take you home.’

‘Break in to the office?’ said Clancy not a little alarmed.

‘Well, it’s not technically a break-in. I have the key code, Blacker gave it to me, it’s just we will probably be murdered by Spectrum if we get caught using it.’

Clancy was speechless as he watched Ruby punch in the door code and turn the handle. ‘Well come on bozo, don’t hang around waiting to get caught.’

Clancy was unimpressed by the Spectrum secret agency office.

‘What a dump!’ he marveled. ‘I think someone has been pulling your leg, I don’t think these people are secret agents at all.’

But Ruby wasn’t listening, she was busy climbing up the high file shelves which spanned the back of the office.

‘What are you doing?’ said Clancy.

Ruby pointed at the box on the very top shelf, it was wrapped and ready for mailing, ‘I can’t reach, I am going to have to stand on your shoulders.’

‘Oh man, you owe me, you really owe me.’

It was a little perilous but somehow Ruby was able to balance without either falling or injuring her friend; ever so carefully she reached for the little brown box.

‘You really owe me,’ repeated Clancy.

Once down Ruby placed the package on the desk and carefully unwrapped it. She lifted the lid and one by one took each item out. There was a silver metal water bottle, some sunscreen, some gloves, a penknife and a powder compact.

‘How very strange,’ said Ruby lifting out the compact.

‘What is it?’ said Clancy peering over her shoulder.

‘Why would Lopez take a powder compact up a mountain?’

‘Maybe she was very into her appearance,’ suggested Clancy.

Ruby gave him a look. ‘She’s dangling off a mountain Clance, when exactly do ya figure she’s gonna powder her nose?’

‘I was just coming up with a possible explanation is all – perhaps it was her lucky powder compact.’

Ruby rolled her eyes.

‘OK, if you’re so clever you tell me.’

‘I think,’ said Ruby holding up the compact, ‘I think she took this with her for a reason.’ Ruby clicked open the case. ‘I think this just might be where she hid the code!’ But when Ruby looked inside she was dismayed to see nothing but a puff and some slightly tired looking beige powder.

‘Oh,’ she said.

Clancy chewed his lip. ‘Never mind Rube – you could have been right, it’s perfectly possible – I mean perhaps it was where she kept the code but someone already found it.’

‘Yeah, and perhaps I was just actually wrong, perhaps it’s got nothing to do with nothing.’

Ruby sat down, deflated. ‘I guess we better put everything back just how we found it and get out of here.’

‘Look I’ll do it Ruby, I’m good at leaving no tracks.’

Clancy had just repacked the box and Ruby was just struggling to push it onto the topmost shelf when they thought they heard a car pull up – its lights illuminating the shabby office. They held their breath and waited – but the car drove on by.

‘Can we maybe get outta here?’ pleaded Clancy.

The whole way back Ruby said not one word. And she spent the weekend alone.

Chapter 27.

A formula for murder

‘WELL LOOK WHO IT IS – it’s that Redfort kid’

‘Ha ha, very funny Del,’ said Ruby.

‘So how’s your grandmother?’ asked Mouse.

Ruby caught Clancy’s eye. ‘She’s as well as I’ve ever known her.’

‘That’s great,’ said Red.

‘Yeah it would be if she wasn’t dead,’ muttered Clancy under his breath – Ruby kicked him quite hard in the back of the leg, his squeal drowned out by the sound of the school bell. The five of them made their way to class.

‘Hey Ruby,’ said Clancy when the others were out of earshot, ‘you said you were going to tell me what you saw in that slide show – did you see anyone really dreadful?’

‘Oh that, they were just having a beauty pageant of all the likely suspects.’

‘What do they look like?’

Ruby wanted to tell Clancy everything but the more he knew the more at risk he was and for that matter the more at risk she was.

This is why one should only have dumb friends, thought Ruby.

‘Catch you at recess OK?’ he mouthed.

One hour on, at recess, Ruby tried to take charge. ‘Look Clance, the thing you gotta remember is, you aren’t meant to know anything. I would get practically torn limb from limb for telling you a zillionth of what you know.’

But Clancy just replied by assuring her that he could be trusted. ‘You know me Rube, they could feed my toes one by one to a hungry pack of vultures but I would never blab.’

‘Pack isn’t right, Clancy.’

‘What?’ said Clancy. ‘Pack, it isn’t a pack of vultures. It’s something but it isn’t a pack,’ replied Ruby.

‘Pack, gang, gaggle, that isn’t the point – what I am saying to you is that you can trust me. I don’t blab, never have, never will.’

‘I know that Clancy, of course I know that but you gotta see…’

All the while Ruby was talking she was fiddling with something in her pocket, snapping it open and shut. She wasn’t aware she was doing it until Clancy said, ‘what’s that clicking noise? Are you fiddling with that keyring thing again? Because it’s driving me crazy.’

Ruby jerked her hand out of her pocket and Lopez’s powder compact clattered onto the concrete of the schoolyard.

Ruby and Clancy stared down at it.

‘You took it?’ said Clancy.

‘I didn’t mean to,’ said Ruby. ‘I didn’t even know I had – boy, am I ever in trouble now!’ The mirror was broken and the powder had all spilled out in a dusty explosion, but as the powder settled it revealed a secret. The force of the fall had popped open a section of the compact that Ruby hadn’t even realised was there, a tray designed to hold the powder puff. But instead of the puff, the tray contained a piece of folded paper.

‘What is it?’ whispered Clancy.

What it was, was a small piece of Fountain Hotel notepaper rubbed lightly with a pencil to reveal a series of negative lines through the graphite; lines and in one corner, a word.

‘The missing code,’ Ruby said in a hushed whisper. ‘It has to be – so I was right all along, it never was in the files.’

‘Just looks like lines to me,’ said Clancy. ‘Lines and a some kinda gobbledegook.’ He pointed to the strange code-like word within the mass of lines.

Ruby sat on the bench thinking hard. What was it Lopez had said? “I saw it in the mirror and it all made sense.” What if she hadn’t meant the Twinford Mirror – what if she had meant an actual mirror? Slowly, Ruby picked up the compact from the ground and reflected the paper in the glass. The lines were the other way around and the letters in the left hand corner now read:

‘Well, still doesn’t make any sense to me,’ said Clancy.

‘No, me neither,’ said Ruby.

The bell sounded to signify the end of recess and Ruby reluctantly headed to class. All she could think about was Lopez, how one day she had been sitting bored to death in a little brown office on Maverick street and three days later she was dead. It was like LB had said, curiosity can get you killed.

Ruby opened the door to classroom 14B and sat down.

‘Remind me,’ Mr Singh was saying, ‘what’s the formula for sulphuric acid?’

‘H2SO₄,’ said Ruby without looking up.

‘Correct answer, Ms Redfort, but incorrect classroom. If memory serves, I see you for chemistry on Tuesdays.’

Ruby glanced around her. ‘Oh, I see what you mean, wrong room, wrong class.’ She picked up her bag and stumbled through the door and back downstairs to classroom 14A directly below.

Muttering apologies for her late appearance Ruby made her way to her desk and sat down.

‘As I was saying,’ said Mrs Schneiderman, ‘Khotan was a Buddhist region up until the eleventh century when it came under the ruler Yusuf Qadr Khan and the religion changed. The famous explorer Marco Polo visited Khotan in 1274 – he had heard the stories about the famous Jade Buddha and wanted to see it for himself but discovered that it had long since been smuggled out of the country – no one knows when or by whom.’

‘What’s the big deal Mrs Schneiderman?’ said Vapona. ‘It’s just jade, right? My mom has jade.’

‘Well, where to start Vapona…’ Mrs Schneiderman was flustered; to say that she found Vapona Begwell very difficult to teach was an understatement.

‘Apart from the beauty and significance of the Buddha itself, it is important to remember that this isn’t just any jade, this is translucent jadeite jade – many people regard it as the most valuable kind. Though not the people of Khotan: they prized the milky-white nephrite jade found in the region – considered it more precious than gold. And that’s what makes it such a mystery – what was a jadeite jade Buddha doing in Khotan in the first place? How did it get there? Jade is found all over the world but jadeite jade is not found in China.’

Vapona was yawning rudely. Red Monroe hated to see Mrs Schneiderman’s feelings get hurt and so she did what Red did best, she pretended to take an interest. ‘So Mrs Schneiderman, where does jadeite come from?’

‘Oh, good question Red. It’s found in places as far away as New Zealand, and as local as California. It’s also found in Alaska, Guatemala… and of course Burma, which is the most likely place for the Buddha to have come from. You can tell the difference between jadeite and nephrite not only from their appearance but also because of course they have different chemical compositions.’

Vapona was by now resting her head on her desk and doing her utmost to look supremely bored.

Mrs Schneiderman looked defeated.

But Ruby Redfort’s brain was working overtime. Of course, she thought…

‘So Mrs Schneiderman,’ continued Red brightly, ‘you say jadeite has a different chemical composition from nephrite jade – what might that be exactly?’

‘Well now, let me think,’ said Mrs Schneiderman. ‘I believe it’s… sodium, oxygen, silicon, and what’s the other one… oh yes, aluminium.’

As she spoke she picked up her chalk and began to write on the board, but Ruby was already there.

NaAlSi 2O6

Not a word, a formula.

Ruby’s hand shot up. ‘Mrs Schneiderman, could I possibly be excused? I just remembered something really, really urgent that I must do.’

Mrs Schneiderman looked bewildered. ‘But Ruby, this is history, you are in class, how can I excuse you without a note?’

‘Good point,’ said Ruby, and she began to scribble something on a piece of Redfort headed note paper. Then she handed it to Mrs Schneiderman.

‘But Ruby, you just wrote this, the ink is still wet.’

‘Just wave it around a bit, it’ll dry in no time.’ Ruby had already gathered up all her things and was heading to the door.

‘But that’s not what I meant, I mean it wasn’t written by your mother.’

‘Don’t worry, Mrs Schneiderman, my mom would give you the big “OK” if only she was here – look, it has her signature.’

Mrs Schneiderman looked at the note, and indeed it did.

My daughter Ruby is to be excused from history if she feels an urgent need to be somewhere else.

Yours faithfully, S Redfort.

P.S. thank you for teaching my daughter about the Jade Buddha of Khotan, lord knows I’ve tried.

By the time Mrs Schneiderman could form a word, Ruby had already skidded down the corridor and was very nearly out of the school gates.

She ran and ran until she reached the payphone on the corner of the street. Her call was answered after two rings.

‘Hey Hitch, you wanna know what I know?’

‘That depends on what you know kid.’

‘Let me rephrase that,’ said Ruby, ‘you WANNA KNOW what I know.’

‘OK, now I get it – what have you got?’

‘Something I just saw in the mirror,’ said Ruby.

Silence.

‘You still there, Hitch?’

‘I’ll pick you up kid.’

‘Then I better tell you where I am.’

‘I know where you are kid, you’re on the corner of Lime and Culver.’

‘How’d ya know that?’ asked Ruby, genuinely amazed.

‘I have this little device that tells me which payphone you are on and exactly where it is,’ replied Hitch.

‘Creepy but cool – I must remember never to lie to you about my whereabouts. Better be quick, I just ditched school and there could be consequences.’

‘I’ll handle that, be with you in 10.’

Eight minutes later Hitch’s car pulled up.

‘You’re early,’ said Ruby.

‘Watch must be fast’ replied Hitch. ‘So what’s this all about?’

‘Buy me a soda and I’ll tell you.’

Hitch shrugged. ‘You drive a hard bargain kid’

When they reached Blinky’s Corner Café they sat down at one of the lemon yellow booths at the far end where it was quiet.

‘OK,’ said Ruby in a low whisper, ‘you know how I thought Lopez might have taken the code with her up that mountain?’

Hitch frowned.

‘Well, now I got proof, the only thing is you’re not gonna be too happy about how I got it.’

Hitch raised an eyebrow.

‘I know, I know, LB’s gonna be mad as a snake but you can just tell her I cracked the code. ‘I saw it in the mirror and it all made sense’.’

‘You’re telling me you cracked the Lopez code?’ said Hitch

‘I sure am,’ nodded Ruby.

‘And how did you do that kid?’

‘OK, well you gotta promise not to have a freak out.’

‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ said Hitch.

‘Well it gets worse; the thing is I know Lopez worked out the fountain was the Fountain Hotel, and I know she went there herself, and what’s more I know she was spying on a woman in a hat with a veil – the same one from the bank I think – and that she picked up a piece of paper she wasn’t meant to pick up. I also know that she got caught doing it.’

Hitch’s eyebrow was working overtime. ‘And how do you know all this?’

Ruby shrugged. ‘Let’s just say I did some research. You see I began to wonder if this avalanche was really an accident – I mean, maybe someone wanted her dead.’

‘I’m beginning to see your point of view,’ said Hitch.

‘Now for the tricky part,’ said Ruby.

‘The tricky part? I thought you playing at detective was the tricky part.’

‘No, you’ll see – it gets worse. I needed to find the piece of paper and I had a feeling that Lopez might have had it with her when she died, and thinking about Lopez and how smart she was made me think she would never have left it just lying around in her hotel room – she had to have it on her.’

‘Kid, I don’t like where this is going – please don’t tell me you took a look through her things.’

‘It was the only way to know for sure,’ said Ruby, ‘and it’s not like I didn’t ask.’

Hitch frowned. ‘Go on.’

‘Well, I found one thing that didn’t make sense – why would she take a powder compact mountain climbing?’

‘And why would she?’ asked Hitch

‘Because she used it to hide this.’ Ruby placed the ratty piece of notepaper on the table. Hitch looked at it.

‘Looks like a lot of lines to me – like a maze puzzle… some kind of plan or map?’

‘Yep, that’s what I think it is – I’ll bet it’s a map of the City Bank vaults.’

‘So? We knew they had that,’ shrugged Hitch.

‘But,’ continued Ruby, ‘when you look at it in the mirror like… so, it becomes a map of the City Museum basement – Jeremiah Stiles designed the two buildings as mirror images of each other.’

Hitch said nothing – just waited for her to continue.

‘And you see this writing in the far corner here – NaAlSi 2O6?’

Hitch nodded. ‘Is it a storage room number? A code number for one of the antiquities?

‘Not exactly – it’s a formula,’ said Ruby

‘A formula for what?’ said Hitch.

‘A formula for something that the people of ancient China considered more precious than gold.’

‘Jade?’ whispered Hitch.

‘Those creeps aren’t coming for the gold,’ said Ruby. ‘They’re coming to steal the Jade Buddha of Khotan.’

‘Well, I’ll be darned,’ said Hitch.

‘Lopez got confused – got the whole thing the wrong way round. She was sorta right but wrong – until she saw it in the mirror.’

‘I think it’s time you explained all this to LB,’ said Hitch, dropping some bills onto the table. He patted her on the back. ‘Kid, you’re a genius – a soon to be dead genius of course but a genius none the less.’

Chapter 28.

Secretly super

LB GAVE RUBY QUITE A DRESSING-DOWN over the break in to the Maverick Street office.

‘You had no right to break in to a Spectrum department,’ she said.

‘It wasn’t technically a break-in,’ Ruby had countered. ‘I mean technically you did gave me the keypad code – I just let myself in is all.’

‘If you want to get technical Redfort, you took something that wasn’t yours and technically that’s stealing.’

LB wasn’t too happy about the trip to the Fountain Hotel either. ‘Why in the name of good sense didn’t you tell Agent Blacker about your hunch and let him handle it?’ Of course Ruby had her reasons, reasons that involved not ratting on Lopez, reasons that involved wanting a piece of the action, but she couldn’t see a whole lot of point going into them.

All in all Ruby got quite an earful but for all the ticking-off, Ruby thought she could see something different in LB’s eyes, something approaching respect perhaps. But all she said was, ‘Nice going, Redfort.’

Then she turned, picked up her phone and started issuing a million orders.

Ruby guessed she had been dismissed.

It was strange for Ruby returning to Twinford Junior High the very next day. She felt a sense of elation as she cycled the short distance to school but once she walked into her homeroom and sat down at her desk, she felt a slow dragging lowering of her spirits. She had a lurking sense that whatever thrill had come her way was most probably over. Yesterday she still had something, something she had to solve to convince Spectrum she was worth the trouble, but now that she had, what was there?

‘Nice going? That’s all she said?’

Clancy had been pretty indignant when Ruby met up with him sometime later that evening. He couldn’t believe that his pal, the smartest person he had met in his whole entire life, Ruby Redfort, was being treated like a nobody.

‘You have to remember, Clance, it isn’t like normal life. LB does this kinda thing every day – for her it’s probably no biggy.’

‘No biggy!’ said Clance. ‘You save the Jade Buddha of Khotan and it’s “no biggy”?’

‘Well, my folks will be pleased, anyway,’ said Ruby, ‘not that they will ever know of course.’

‘Yeah,’ said Clancy, ‘that’s the problem with being a super hero, no one ever knows how super you are.’

When Ruby got home she went to find Hitch. He was packing up his room.

‘Leaving already?’

‘Not right away but soon – just waiting to get my orders.’

Ruby looked around – there wasn’t a lot to pack up, yet somehow, as he moved his things into boxes and trunks, the soul seemed to disappear from the room.

‘So what’s happening at Spectrum? You must be lining up some heavy duty security for this whole museum launch.’

‘Apart from the laser lockdown system we are about to install, we also have the whole security team which was assigned to the bank, and of course Spectrum agents will be infiltrated among the guests – oh yes, and Ambassador Crew has generously lent the museum his personal security staff.’

‘Clancy’s dad is lending his security staff? Wow, this Buddha must be important.’

‘Well kid,’ said Hitch, lightly punching her on the arm, ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard, but it is the Jade Buddha of Khotan.’

‘Oh yeah, now that you come to mention it, I think my folks might have said something about that.’

He winked and continued to slip shirts from hangers.

‘Anything you need me to do?’ asked Ruby hopefully.

‘I think you can consider yourself off the payroll kid. You did what needed doing, somewhat unconventionally it must be acknowledged, but we folks at Spectrum are grateful to you. Now you can go back to what you do best.’

‘Yeah, and what’s that?’

‘Bugging the heck out of poor Mrs Drisco.’

‘Oh, sure that’s what I live for.’

Ruby went upstairs to the kitchen and whistled – from nowhere Bug was by her side wagging his tail.

‘At least I still have my old pal Bug, I don’t suppose you’ll ever dump me right? At least, not while there’s food in the refrigerator.’ Bug licked her on the cheek.

‘Your breath could be fresher but thanks anyway.’ She scratched him behind the ears.

Ruby and the dog made their way down the back stairs and left the yard by the back gate. It was a beautiful evening. The sun was getting ready to set and the breeze that touched her face was warm – but for Ruby it might as well have been thunder and hail, for she felt nothing but cold stinging disappointment, a feeling Ruby Redfort was simply not used to.

And just like that, Ruby’s life in the fast lane had hit a dead end.